In what has to be one of the most egregious wastes of inch-count ever in the "Paper of Record," novelist Dave Eggers laments Hillary Clinton's victory (in raw popular vote, at least) over Barack Obama in the California Democratic primary.

Given Obama's triumphs in states like Kansas and Idaho and Virginia, this outcome, Eggers suggests, is ironic. California, you see, is supposed to be more "progressive" than Kansas and Idaho and Virgina. And Barack Obama, as every sentient person knows, is the most "progressive" candidate in the race. Therefore California has been, in Eggers terminology, "out-progressived" by the normally benighted peoples of the South and Midwest.

"It was hard not to detect, at least here in the Bay Area, the sense of disappointment in our state after the subsequent primary results. To be out-progressived by Alabama, Maryland and North Dakota? Painful," Eggers writes.

"Syllogistic" is what I think they call this kind of reasoning.

Something tells me that if one were to shake Dave Eggers by the lapels and say, "It's more complicated than that" — there are demographic factors, such as race and class and education levels, at work here — he would just tune me out. Barack Obama's emergence as the "change agent" (or should we just come right out and call him a prophet?) is nearly complete.

Much as I find Obama personally charming and decent, this is what fatally turns me off about the Obama candidacy — namely, the condescension that is at the core of his overeducated elite supporters.

To oppose Obama — for Clintonites, as well as Republicans — is to stand in the way of The Way.

Gag.

Hmm.

Perhaps this is a question better suited for a self-described ethicist, for I am hopelessly undecided.

A friend asks whether it's appropriate to open and download for oneself a CD bought as a gift for a loved one.

Generally, I think the removal of plastic packaging constitutes a breach of gift-giving etiquette. The benefit, too, of personal consumption that accrues to oneself via the download is another ethical red flag.

Then again, music in this day and age is such an amorphous commodity; who, really, can claim ownership of it at all? And at a time when you can get almost any new release for free, giving someone a hard copy is itself an effort that constitutes a gift of a kind.

I guess, ultimately, it depends on the loved one.

What do you, wise readers, think?

Times are tough for print publications as it is. Just imagine how tenuous is the business model of a small, niche-driven magazine that covers the music industry.

Such, at any rate, is the sad, double-whammied fate of No Depression, the alt-country magazine that will shutter its dead-tree operations after 13 years of publication. R.I.P.

Reminds me of these halcyon days.

If I didn't know better, I'd swear this trailer for M. Night Shyamalan's forthcoming "The Happening" was a parody of a really bad M. Night Shyamalan movie, put together by some band of guerrilla short-film makers. That, or an SNL skit starring Mark Wahlberg.

Nope. It's a genuine really bad M. Night Shyamalan movie.

Dovetailing with my recent piece contrasting "Little" Steven Van Zandt's reactionary opinion of new rock with Bruce Springsteen's small-c catholic listening habits, check out what's on the latter's iPod.